The Griefbots: AI for the resurrection of the dead

Immortality and resurrection have been central to human beliefs and expectations for millennia. From shamans to the Bible, from the Divine Comedy to spiritualism, we have always sought to interact with the dead and the afterlife. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, griefbots are emerging, particularly in China: virtual clones of a dearly departed with whom one can interact. A person is offered to record his or her own images, voice and thoughts in order to continue to interact, in a synthetic way, with loved ones after death.

A disturbing form in many ways of personalization achieved through Artificial Intelligence. Some solutions are based on simple photographs and audio recordings, and succeed in achieving surprisingly realistic messages and interactions. The psychological consequences of these applications, particularly in relation to the ability to grieve, are still little studied.